


To Keep Open

by constellationqueen



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: 5 Times, 5+1 Things, Angst, Fluff, M/M, a bit of smut, i'm just a good wife and a sap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-20
Updated: 2017-02-20
Packaged: 2018-09-25 19:22:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9840506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/constellationqueen/pseuds/constellationqueen
Summary: 5 times Andrew opened a water bottle for Neil and 1 time he didn't.





	

**Author's Note:**

> [Taylor](http://wymack.tumblr.com/) sent me a prompt a longggggggggg time ago and this is my response

**I.**

After a life on the run, working and living through life-threatening injuries, Neil never imagined that small acts could cause him so much pain. But simply trying to twist the cap off of his water bottle has him crying out and cradling his hands to his chest. 

“What did I tell you,” Andrew asks, seemingly uninterested.

Neil grits his teeth around the pain. He knows what Andrew said. 

Andrew grabs Neil’s chin and tilts his head up and then keeps pulling at his jaw, until Neil is standing up straight again. Andrew stares, and where he touches, Neil’s skin warms and, though Neil would never tell Andrew, hurts. Neil has been, officially and unofficially, Andrew’s for… Christ, how long has it been, now? The time between June and Christmas and now fade and blur like a fresh watercolor painting. 

But this is new. Not  _this_ , now, here, with Andrew willingly standing so close, touching and not threatening to jerk away at the slightest flinch of Neil’s. But  _this_ , since Baltimore, since Nathan and Lola, with Andrew all but ignoring the rest of his family to pay closer attention to Neil. 

It’s  _this_ , settled in the air between them, an unspoken string of words and the memory of Andrew’s teeth on Neil’s lip and the easy fit of a cigarette between index and middle fingers. Neil can sense it, even if Andrew won’t acknowledge it.

Andrew releases Neil and bends down. One fluid motion, a contrast to Andrew’s bulk, has the water bottle in Andrew’s hand and the cap off. He takes a drink, and Neil watches the way this throat moves. He’s kissed those fluttering blond lashes, and he remembers the butterfly feel of them against his lips. He remembers the warmth in his chest from Andrew even letting him do that.

“Don’t make me repeat myself,” Andrew says, bottle still in his hand. His eyes are focused somewhere beyond Neil’s left ear. 

Neil sighs and then recites, “’Don’t do anything stupid. Don’t do anything that’s going to set back your healing; you’re enough of a pain in the ass as it is. As a matter of fact, just don’t do anything.’”

“Now if only you could process instructions as well as you can remember them.” Andrew sets the water bottle on the counter and throws the cap into the garbage on his way out of the kitchen.

**II.**

Being winded after a game comes with the territory, but Neil hasn’t been this lacking for breath since the game against the Ravens his freshman year. Every drag of air into his lungs carries with it fresh shards of glass to shred him apart from the inside. There’s a pocket of pain below his ribs that makes him want to double over. He feels nauseous, dizzy, and his knees can’t support him.

But, they won, so Neil thinks it’s worth it.

There are people at his back. Neil knows this instinctively as a pressure at the base of his skull, a weight against his back telling him that he’s being stared at, that it’s time to make casual and get the hell away. But his legs are rubber, and, realistically, he knows it’s just his team.

“Don’t touch him.” Andrew’s voice is Neil’s gravity. He leans into the hand on his shoulder before it’s there, expecting it. Neil knows how awful he must sound, hopes he’s not worrying Andrew too much. He’ll be fine, if he could just fucking breathe. 

Deft fingers undo Neil’s helmet and pull it away. Even the hot air of the court is a shock of cold against the sweat covering Neil’s scalp. When his neck guard is released, Neil sags forward. He didn’t realize how much the tight piece of support had hindered his breathing, but all of a sudden it feels as if twice as much oxygen floods his airways with each breath. 

That means that twice as many shards of glass dig into the soft tissue of his lungs, but he’ll take it.

An arm that must be Andrew’s bands around his waist, right below his ribs. Without any help from Neil, he’s lifted off the ground and kept on his feet. “Smile for the press,” Andrew leers, tone cast low so that the comment is only for Neil. If he had enough spare breath for it, Neil would laugh.

Andrew maneuvers them around the long line of players shaking hands and leads Neil instead through the stadium to the away-team’s locker room. Abby is on their heels. “Go away,” Andrew says, and Neil wonders if that distrust will always be there. For now, he leans heavier into Andrew to get his attention and shakes his head when he has it. Breathing is easier already. His heart isn’t pounding quite so fast.

The drop from his feet to the bench brings the nausea back, and he leans forward to press his head between his knees. A hand settles on the back of his neck, fingers threading - if only barely - through his hair.

“He needs water,” Abby says. Andrew meets the comment with silence. “Andrew, he’s dehydrated. He needs water.” Andrew’s fingertips are now pinpoints of pressure, just on the wrong side of uncomfortable. 

Neil struggles with his gloves for a moment, drops them once they’re off, and reaches up to twist his hand through Andrew’s jersey. “Stop,” he manages, “being difficult.” So very rarely does he call Andrew out; he wishes he could see Andrew’s face. 

Andrew’s hand leaving Neil’s neck is the only warning he has before he’s pulled into a sitting position by the collar of his shoulder pads. An opened water bottle is shoved into his hands. “Drink, then, asshole.” Neil smiles and lifts the water bottle to his lips with a shaking hand. He ends up spilling down his chin and chest. There’s only a brief glint of amusement and satisfaction in Andrew’s expression before he rolls his eyes and takes the bottle from Neil and helps him drink.

**III.**

This is Allison’s fault. And Dan’s. And Nicky’s too. 

Well, it’s probably also a bit Neil’s fault. He can admit that to himself, even when he’s bent over the toilet, uncomfortable and too warm as he fights off the inebriation from last night.

Andrew enters the bathroom on a cool breeze and frowns down at him. “How have you managed to look worse in the five minutes I’ve been gone.” It’s not really a question. A lot of Andrew’s questions aren’t really questions. They’re also not rhetorical. But Neil doesn’t really feel like opening his mouth, though, so he just shrugs his shoulder and rests his cheek against the toilet seat. “Nothing to say? That’s a first.” A sharp crackle of plastic precedes a water bottle being shoved in Neil’s face. “Drink.”

Sitting up is more trouble than it’s worth, and the motion makes his stomach seize, but he takes the bottle from Andrew and sips carefully from it. “Never again.”

“It shouldn’t have even happened this time.” Andrew, despite his tone, sits on the floor beside Neil, who watches those broad shoulders lean back against the sink cabinets. 

Neil hums noncommittally and takes another sip of water. It feels good against his throat, but by the time it hits his stomach it’s turned into lead. “I’ve never been voluntarily drunk before. Wanted to see what it was like.”

A muscle works in Andrew’s jaw. Maybe it’s the word “voluntarily” that gets him. Maybe it’s something else. “And are you satisfied with the results.” 

“More or less.” Neil is tired. He’s nauseous. He doesn’t ever want to do that again, but it was interesting while it lasted.

Andrew says nothing; he stares at the wall, his eyes narrowed. “Are you done throwing up?”

Even the mention of the word makes Neil’s stomach revolt. He groans, setting the water bottle aside and pressing a hand to his stomach. “I hate you sometimes.”

“Good. If it keeps you from being this stupid again, hate me all you like.” Andrew rises to his feet. “When you’re ready for food, there’s eggs in the kitchen.”

Neil smiles. He hadn’t smelled food cooking when Andrew swept into the room. But he knows that Andrew will cook for him if he asks. “Thank you.”

**IV.**

“Afterglow” is not usually a word Neil applies to sex with Andrew. There’s no “making love” either, really. It’s not… rough or rushed or distant, but neither of them is soft enough or patient enough for “making love.” Plus, Andrew doesn’t usually stick around afterward, not that Neil blames him. Healing and opening up are things Andrew does slowly.

Tonight, Andrew stays. He sits up against the headboard, and Neil can hear him fingering a pack of cigarettes, but he stays. Neil does not comment. He remains where Andrew left him, lying on his back and shuddering. With sex, Andrew is a small earthquake that quickly becomes a tsunami, and Neil can’t help but be pulled under. It always leaves him shaking, when he finally surfaces. 

It’s never left him so warm before.

He feels like a mess, but he feels good. Andrew is… progressing, at his own pace. Tonight was a leap of faith that Neil didn’t interfere with or aid in. Andrew never accepts help, and offering it would have destroyed the trust of the moment. Andrew let himself fall, and Neil simply became a softer landing.

He rolls onto his stomach and looks up at Andrew. Their eyes meet, and then Andrew shakes out a cigarette and lights it. “Stop.”

“What?”

Andrew’s eyes narrow, but he doesn’t say anything. 

“Don’t start a house fire. This is finally becoming ours.” Neil knew that Andrew was going to leave as soon as the cigarette left the packet. He’s just trying to let Andrew know that he understands.

Andrew leaves, and he takes his cigarettes and his sweatpants with him. Neil returns to his position on his back, and then he sits up. He debates going to the bathroom to clean himself up. A shower might be nice. But he doesn’t. He’s… oddly sated, comfortable. Moving from the bed feels like shattering something precious and rare.

Andrew comes back. Neil blinks and almost misses the water bottle thrown at his face. He catches it, though, with hands that don’t remember what moving feels like. They’d been buried in Andrew’s hair, moving over Andrew’s arms, pressed into the mattress by Andrew’s callused hands. Like the rest of him, they feel like warm jelly.

Andrew, sans cigarette, resumes his position against the headboard. He’s collected, clean. Neil is the opposite.

“Fingers not working?” From anyone else it would be smug. From Andrew it’s just a question.

“Not sure,” Neil says, and tries to twist the cap off. It slips through his fingers. The thin plastic bottle, already slick with condensation, doesn’t help.

Andrew snatches the bottle from him. “You’re an infant,” he says before passing it back, now without the cap. “Do you need me to help you drink it, too?”

“Are you offering?”

“Shut up, Neil.”

**V.**

Long bus rides used to be Neil’s least favorite thing. It used to be sitting alone in his seat, staring towards the front of the bus, or it was regurgitating statistics with Kevin to the rest of the team. 

But Dan, Allison, Renee, Matt, and Kevin are all gone. Nicky has made friends with most of the new Foxes. Aaron is... actually, Aaron has made some friends, too. Or acquaintances, at the very least. And on the cusp of Andrew’s fifth year, he and Neil share their seat at the back of the bus.

It’s as “public” as he and Andrew ever really get. So separate from the other Foxes, they usually touch from knee to hip, elbow to shoulder. When Neil is lucky, when Andrew has a good day, when they can both stomach the thought of something that may have otherwise been considered stifling, they hold hands.

After a particularly long game, Neil wakes up to a quick stop at a gas station. His head is on Andrew’s shoulder, body turned into him. Andrew’s arm is around Neil’s shoulders, and his scalp tingles with the memory of Andrew’s fingers. “Where are we?” Neil asks. He doesn’t move away, because Andrew hasn’t pushed him away yet.

“Augusta.” 

Andrew’s voice, when he wakes up, has a slight rasp to it, as if all of the smoke from his cigarettes has lifted from his lungs and coated his throat overnight. Right now, he voice is not like that. Andrew has been awake through the night. Andrew allowed Neil to curl against him in his sleep, perhaps even encouraged it.

Neil lets this knowledge seep into him and make a home in his chest before he says anything else. “How long ‘til home?” 

“Two hours and fifteen minutes.”

Neil has never been jealous of Andrew’s memory.

“You can go back to sleep,” Andrew says, and makes no move to push Neil away. Every new progression, every new acceptance, makes Neil that much warmer, makes him feel that much more, well, loved, he supposes. 

“Mm. Thirsty, though.” He stretches his legs but doesn’t move his upper body. He doesn’t want to get up. He’s comfortable, and he’s afraid that if he pulls away now, Andrew won’t let this happen again.

“God, you complain so much.” But when Andrew reaches for his duffel bag at his feet, he does so without releasing Neil, and in a way that jostles Neil only a minor amount. “Here.”

The water bottle is room temperature, but still. Neil stares at the bottle where it rests, in his hand, on his thigh. He doesn’t open it, choosing instead to curl further into Andrew.

“I thought you were thirsty.”

“I am.”

Neil knows Andrew well enough by now to be able to picture the look on his face. “I hate you,” Andrew says, and opens the water bottle for Neil. “Drink the fucking water and go back to sleep.”

**VI.**

Neil knows that sometimes Andrew doesn’t feel like dealing with Neil, or isn’t capable of helping him in that moment. Midnight panic attacks, fresh out of a dream where he still feels like he’s falling despite the solid bed beneath him, are always a place where Neil has Andrew for support. It might be because Andrew has no means of escape, since he always takes the inside of the bed. But Neil thinks, mostly, that Andrew is too familiar with waking up and choking on fear to leave Neil to handle it alone.

But when Neil wakes up and keeps plummeting, spiraling, and Andrew isn’t in bed with him, he finds himself trying desperately to find stability when his foundations are suddenly planted in sand.

His phone is in his fumbling hand and pressed to his ear before he thinks about it. Andrew picks up. Neil says nothing, and neither does Andrew, but they’re both awake and breathing. Neil is just breathing too quickly.

On the other side of the line, Andrew gets up and rustles around. Neil strains to listen, tries to focus. He thinks he hears the fridge open, maybe the faucet turn on. But his panic is persistent and doesn’t leave him alone for long.

“What,” Andrew finally says. 

Neil makes a noise so that Andrew knows he’s not being ignored, but he can’t manage anything past that.

The only thing over the line for what feels like a long time is just Andrew’s measured breaths. It’s steadying, it’s grounding. It’s pretty much what Neil had been expecting. What he  _hadn’t_  been expecting was for Andrew to start talking about his team, reporting player stats and performances at their last practice. 

The steady stream of names and numbers is grounding in a way that Neil doesn’t understand. When they’re together, Andrew is just a solid presence, a weight and a warmth and a hand at the back of Neil’s neck. But apart, lacking that contact, Andrew’s voice and calm breaths are solid things that Neil can cling to. 

When he’s steady enough to sit up, Neil says a mostly-steady thanks.

“Go drink some water.”

Neil gets up on shaky legs and makes his way into the kitchen. The tap water in his apartment is awful, so he keeps bottled water in the fridge. He grabs one and drinks it down. 

“Should I prepare to drop an unreasonable amount of money on gas tonight?”

“No, no. I’m - it’s....” He bites off the word ‘fine’ and sighs. “No. You should try to go back to bed. Thank you for... everything.”

“If you call me again tonight, I’m not answering.”

Neil smiles. “I’ll see you next weekend.”


End file.
